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This is probably a parallel, but I still think Apple came up with the best, most self-disciplining code of conduct of all times: > We will reject Apps for any

by arihant 11y ago

This is probably a parallel, but I still think Apple came up with the best, most self-disciplining code of conduct of all times: > We will reject Apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, "I'll know it when I see it". And we think that you will also know it when you cross it. Yes, they do publish more direct rejection reasons too. But those reasons were enumerated by experience and were repeated over and over -- like religious hate. What I like is they did not start with a committee of people saying, "Let's brainstorm what could go wrong." To be able to deal with a large fraternity of people, the better approach is to not imagine a nominal case. You have to start openly, then establish a nominal case with experience. Mark Stehlik once said, "But, you don't make policies around edge cases; you make policies for the nominal case and deal with the edge cases as the exceptions they are." I like this because this enforces a clear intention of being able to deal with edge cases. This is just like Apple's review guidelines. Firstly, they call it guidelines and not code of conduct. That enforces that they are human and flexible. The problem with having a code of conduct with a large fraternity of people is that you immediately give the community an intent of what you like and what you don't like. That discourages you to find things that you may have liked but now will never get to see. That also gives idiots in a community a chance to police potential talent based on now written code of conduct. That's a grammar-nazi behavior. You may get great English teachers in that community, but I doubt a Hemingway would want anything to do with you. Also, it has to be unique to each project. Having a blanket open source code of conduct is bad. It follows what you know, and discourages what you don't. So it's essentially an inbreeding system. And if an open source project accepts and celebrates an inbreeding system, then it is just a proprietary company with no money and wget-able code, essentially failing on both ends.

tomp 11y ago
The problem with blank statements such as this is that "the line" is a moving goalpost. I'd (reluctantly) support even completely arbitrary enforcement, as long as it's not retroactive. But if they first accept apps with Confederate flag, and then ban them later, that's IMO a very bad precedent.
- cmsj 11y ago
  The set of things that are acceptable, is always in flux. Such is life. Such is the App Store. You can choose to think about your content carefully before you put it out in the world, or you can choose not to :)
- appleflaxen 11y ago
  But culturally, there are many big examples where that's exactly what happenened over time: things that are initially considered "just fine" gradually become abhorrent or indefensible. slavery women as property child labor and others that really seem to be moving in that direction: child discipline / spanking circumcision homosexuality and gay marriage confederate flag (which is exactly your example)
drinchev 11y ago
Your comparison resembles a bit the continental and anglo-saxon legal systems. In the European-continental legal system, based on Roman law, you have a stress on written law and exceptions are dealt based on similarities with it. In the Anglo-saxon legal system you have decision based on a set of people ( jury ) and on the practice ( precedent ) in the past. As a conclusion I would say they both work and both of them have Pros & Cons.
resu_nimda 11y ago
But those reasons were enumerated by experience and were repeated over and over -- like religious hate. What I like is they did not start with a committee of people saying, "Let's brainstorm what could go wrong." The distinction doesn't seem that clear to me. It seems like this committee has gotten together as a response to the well known social issues that have cropped up over and over in specifically the github community and more generally the open source and software development communities. You bless the Apple rule or guideline around religious hate, but dismiss the entire code of conduct here? Do you have any specific gripes or examples of policies you think are wrong? Could it be that you agree more with the rules Apple has put in place, or at least don't feel as strongly about the rules of the App Store, but maybe feel some distaste for someone trying to "police" this somewhat different arena?
- arihant 11y ago
  > Could it be that you agree more with the rules Apple has put in place, or at least don't feel as strongly about the rules of the App Store, but maybe feel some distaste for someone trying to "police" this somewhat different arena? Yes. If Apple put those rules for an open source project, I'd reject them just as violently. There is no need to police in open source, no matter how benevolent it is. > Do you have any specific gripes or examples of policies you think are wrong? Yes I think it went far too contextual to be a generic "don't be a jerk" policy. It dictates what emoticons one can use and one cannot. Let me backtrack you to history of smileys. Smileys were invented at CMU because researchers often failed to glean the sentiment of a comment made by a peer reviewer. So they started making happy and sad faces on peer reviews. Now, we don't know how emoticons would evolve in, say, next 30 years. But it sure as hell is possible that someone in open source community might invent something while coloring outside the lines. If he isn't allowed to, we will miss on the invention. Moreover, I have a feeling these policies will be policed more by "community coordinators" or similar people who don't code and will ridicule real contributors for using a wrong emoticon in an issue. No real programmer will care about this non-technical piece of junk. Open source is not for that kind of environment. We don't know what we will stifle by putting such policies. Thinking that we're smart enough to know future is extremely naive.

by arihant 11y ago

tomp 11y ago

The problem with blank statements such as this is that "the line" is a moving goalpost. I'd (reluctantly) support even completely arbitrary enforcement, as long as it's not retroactive. But if they first accept apps with Confederate flag, and then ban them later, that's IMO a very bad precedent.

cmsj 11y ago
The set of things that are acceptable, is always in flux. Such is life. Such is the App Store. You can choose to think about your content carefully before you put it out in the world, or you can choose not to :)
appleflaxen 11y ago
But culturally, there are many big examples where that's exactly what happenened over time: things that are initially considered "just fine" gradually become abhorrent or indefensible. slavery women as property child labor and others that really seem to be moving in that direction: child discipline / spanking circumcision homosexuality and gay marriage confederate flag (which is exactly your example)

drinchev 11y ago

Your comparison resembles a bit the continental and anglo-saxon legal systems. In the European-continental legal system, based on Roman law, you have a stress on written law and exceptions are dealt based on similarities with it. In the Anglo-saxon legal system you have decision based on a set of people ( jury ) and on the practice ( precedent ) in the past. As a conclusion I would say they both work and both of them have Pros & Cons.

resu_nimda 11y ago

But those reasons were enumerated by experience and were repeated over and over -- like religious hate. What I like is they did not start with a committee of people saying, "Let's brainstorm what could go wrong." The distinction doesn't seem that clear to me. It seems like this committee has gotten together as a response to the well known social issues that have cropped up over and over in specifically the github community and more generally the open source and software development communities. You bless the Apple rule or guideline around religious hate, but dismiss the entire code of conduct here? Do you have any specific gripes or examples of policies you think are wrong? Could it be that you agree more with the rules Apple has put in place, or at least don't feel as strongly about the rules of the App Store, but maybe feel some distaste for someone trying to "police" this somewhat different arena?

arihant 11y ago
> Could it be that you agree more with the rules Apple has put in place, or at least don't feel as strongly about the rules of the App Store, but maybe feel some distaste for someone trying to "police" this somewhat different arena? Yes. If Apple put those rules for an open source project, I'd reject them just as violently. There is no need to police in open source, no matter how benevolent it is. > Do you have any specific gripes or examples of policies you think are wrong? Yes I think it went far too contextual to be a generic "don't be a jerk" policy. It dictates what emoticons one can use and one cannot. Let me backtrack you to history of smileys. Smileys were invented at CMU because researchers often failed to glean the sentiment of a comment made by a peer reviewer. So they started making happy and sad faces on peer reviews. Now, we don't know how emoticons would evolve in, say, next 30 years. But it sure as hell is possible that someone in open source community might invent something while coloring outside the lines. If he isn't allowed to, we will miss on the invention. Moreover, I have a feeling these policies will be policed more by "community coordinators" or similar people who don't code and will ridicule real contributors for using a wrong emoticon in an issue. No real programmer will care about this non-technical piece of junk. Open source is not for that kind of environment. We don't know what we will stifle by putting such policies. Thinking that we're smart enough to know future is extremely naive.